


Unexpected

by prairiecrow



Series: Lethe's Curse [14]
Category: ReBoot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gladiatorial combat, Impending Death, M/M, Memory Alteration, Serious Injuries, Spiritual Vampirism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megabyte's hopes of defeating the Champion of the Red King in mortal combat are about to end in his destruction -- or so he thinks. But he hasn't counted on Bob's tendency to disobey direct orders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Takes place on the world of Lethe, where Bob and Megabyte awoke stripped of their memories, formed an alliance of convenience — and found themselves, one day, profoundly physically changed.  
> 2) SPOILERS for a major plot point in "Lethe's Curse". 3) A picture of Megabyte and Bob at this point in the chronology: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/crowdog66/lethebobmegabyte-1.jpg

Water had brought Megabyte into this world, and now like the pulse of a tumultuous ocean the roar of the watching crowd pounded against his proud crest, conveying almost as many emotions as the hundreds of throats that united to produce it: exultation, anger, satisfaction, hope, fear, despair — all of it fundamentally irrelevant to his present situation. As all-consuming as their love for him might be, the Enthralled were compelled to be mere spectators by the weight of tradition and their fear of the death-geas that bounded the arena, and as darkly as their hatred might burn, those who supported the current Red King of Omalan were inhibited by the same factors. Megabyte was alone —

— or rather, he grimly wished that he was.

Crumpled against the marble wall of the arena where the Clockwork Champion had thrown him like a rag doll, below the hole in the stone that had been gouged into it by the impact of his own body, Megabyte dragged himself onto his hands and knees by sheer force of indomitable will — and could go no further. He had succeeded in smashing one of the jewelled chest-mounted medallions that powered the combat artifact, but the Champion's grip on his left calf combined with the inertial stresses of being torn from the mechanical warrior's body by that limb and flung twenty meters had severely damaged the mechanical structures of his knee and lower leg. When he tried to make it bear his weight the shock of negative feedback slammed through him like a wave of flame, and he bowed his head against its red-hot surge, grinding his silver teeth savagely in anguish that was both physical and intellectual in nature.

Odds calculations cascaded through his vast quicksilver mind in spite of his suffering, taking into consideration the events of the past ten seconds, and came to a single end sum: he was going to die here, his glorious future cast into the dust to sink into oblivion along with his last gasp of blood and fury — and he couldn't even…

 _Get up!_  he thundered at himself, despising the inexcusable weakness of his living steel substance — to no effect. He'd known worse pain when the agents of the White Witch had attacked him in I'vartalan, bathing him in the esoric hellfire of their mistress's wrath — and he had survived the punishment that would have killed any lesser being then. The agony of a broken knee joint and a few crushing blows, of a score of sword-slices and a back nearly fractured by an impact with a wall, should be nothing in comparison…

… but he couldn't catch his breath, and in the back of his mind the chronometer sped on, ticking off seconds he could ill afford.

Again he tried to rise. Again his damaged leg and battered body refused to obey his commands. And now he could feel the ground vibrating beneath him, the sand shifting with each ponderous footfall of the Red King's Champion as the clockwork behemoth bore down on him with inexorable speed… and beyond that rapidly approaching sound of doom the voices of the watching crowd rose to new heights of emotional frenzy. He could particularly hear the cries of the Enthralled — and feel them in his core, their love and their terror for him pouring raw etheric energy into the link he shared with them all, accelerating his body's process of self-repair. 

It wasn't fast enough. He estimated he needed at least eleven seconds to knit together the critically stressed metallic substance of his ripped knee sufficiently to put weight on it, and he wasn't even going to get eight before the Champion's blade, keen enough and empowered by enough magics to fatally breach his armour, descended on him and cleaved him in two. 

He closed his eyes and turned his attention fully to the Enthralled for a precious half-second: his devotees, his etheric slaves, his people… _his_ , in every way. He let himself fully absorb the influx of their devotion, so nuanced and so sweet, and he was consumed with venomous regret that all his plans for them were to be destroyed along with him. He tried to let them go, their love and their anguish both, along with the promise of a lifetime of power and glory bathed in their adulation. Uncharacteristically, he failed. 

The shaking beneath him grew steadily worse. The Clockwork Champion would reach his position in five point five seconds at its current speed and his knee wouldn't be usable for at least three seconds after that. It was not in Megabyte's nature to feel the more craven emotions, but in that moment of keen awareness of his own mortality — he, whom his thralls lauded as the Immortal Lord! — he felt a spasm of fear that made both his hearts falter, that made him try to drag himself upright again and bite back a howl of outrage when his body persisted in failing him. No! It couldn't end like this! He was _Megabyte_ , the master of every plan, supremely skilled in everything he set his mind to, the spider whose webs ensnared every enemy in his path, and it was inconceivable that his ultimate defeat was to come at the hands of a magical artifact with no more brains than —

 _Bob._  Bob had fought for him in I'vartalan, and it had been the sprite's quick thinking and keytool that had gotten Megabyte and what was left of his sorcerer-guard through the Gate, safely away from the White Witch's vengeance. For an instant he seized on the thought of the Guardian — his amber eyes, his crooked smile, his slim bladelike azure body that became truly pliant only in the forge of their deepest shared passion — and in the heart of his rage and dismay he felt a tiny flare of hope, like a candle's flame in the dark storm of his soul, inextinguishable. He might die, but Bob would be safe: Rufus had strict orders to get him out of Cestiala within an hour after Megabyte's death, and Megabyte had no doubt that the Captain would carry out his instructions to the letter. One thing, at least — the only thing that came even close to mattering as much as Megabyte himself — would be salvaged from the ruin of all his grand visions for the future, and from whatever grave they cast his remains into he would continue to influence the life of the man he had permitted to draw near enough to him to share his bed, and his dreams.

Where it counted most, he would never be forgotten.

A hint of a gloating smile curved Megabyte's thin lips, revealing a flash of bitter silver. He could hear the Clockwork Champion now over the howling of the mob: not merely its pounding footfalls but also the grind and hiss of metal on metal, and the almost inaudible whine of its esoric engines. The proximity of his enemy raised his dorsal spines and spurred a growl from his throat; he arched his neck and started to turn his head, to face his own destruction with a final legendary roar of proud defiance —

— when something else came sprinting into his sensory field and skidded to a halt on one knee in the sand in front of him, placing itself squarely between himself and the Champion as the mechanical monster ground to a halt and swung its huge blade high to execute the challenger to its master's rule. Megabyte's brain had already processed the visual cues — the thick twining strands of silver hair, the blue contours of a slender but powerful neck, the courageous set of broad shoulders that was familiar, far too familiar — when the sprite flung up his right forearm and shouted an urgent command as the sword descended: _"Glitch, shield!"_

The sea's roar itself died to stunned silence at those words, a declaration of devotion that put even the vows of the Enthralled to shame. And as a wall of esoric energy leaped into existence to cover them both and buy a few seconds that might make all the difference, Megabyte closed his eyes again in the face of vastly conflicted emotions — consternation, amazement, a burst of renewed determination that clashed with an overwhelming urge to kill the disobedient Guardian where he knelt —  and ruefully reflected that to the end, Bob could be counted upon to supply the unexpected.

THE END


End file.
